


Then・Now・Forever

by PhantomEngineer



Series: Witch-Hunt [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Fem!Sev, Trans Snape Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 08:52:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12273048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhantomEngineer/pseuds/PhantomEngineer
Summary: Originally written for Trans Snape Week (2017) on tumblr.A nice AU. When things started to get dark with the war, Lily said to Sev "Let's run away together," so they did.





	Then・Now・Forever

“Harry’s asleep,” Lily said as she opened the bedroom door. She closed it quietly behind her, padding softly across the sparse wooden floor to the double bed. The shadows cast from the moonlight spilling in through the open, pale blue curtains competed with the old-fashioned bedside lamp, with it's orange tasselled lampshade.

“Good,” replied her partner of over a decade, lounging on the bed, “I imagine this year will be hard on him. He’s already missing Copenhagen,”

Lily sighed, sitting on the bed, “I feel dreadful, but this is for the best,”

“It is,” Severine agreed, putting her book down on the worn wooden bedside table. She rubbed Lily’s shoulder, and Lily gazed at her lovingly. Gone was the bullied little boy, gone was the passively frightened little girl, in their place was a woman of casual confidence, content in her own skin. Her hair was cut into a dramatically short bob, with a severe fringe. It was a more sophisticated version of the spiky punk-style hair she’d worn when they were in their early twenties fleeing and finding themselves on the trains of continental Europe. Now she looked and dressed every inch the seductive femme fatale rather than the rebel girl she had been. Then and now, she’d preferred black, had always had the strong features that didn’t lend themselves to traditional beauty but fit so perfectly with the dark rebellion.

She wasn’t dressed in black now, and entirely make-up free. She wore the short summer Eeyore nightgown Lily had bought her seven years ago in a market in Spain, showing Lily the full extent of her long legs.

Lily leaned into her arms, her red hair falling into Severine’s face. It was long, longer than the time they’d bid Britain goodbye. She’d been curling it back then, but she’d stopped that now. She’d cut it really short just after Harry had been born, in a cheap but cheerful hairdressing shop in rural Holland. It had been practical as a new mother, but it hadn’t suited her. She’d been growing it ever since, aided by the knowledge that Severine loved to play with and braid her red hair. Severine batted the hair out of her face with an affectionate gesture, running her fingers through it and smoothing it down over Lily’s yellow pyjamas, right over the cartoon owl cheerfully printed on the front.

Harry had been an unexpected surprise, with Lily panicking when she had discovered she was pregnant, having only just abandoned their old lives in Britain, still moving cautiously to a new place as often as they could. But somehow it had worked out, and the two of them had managed to find a form of stability for Harry in a life constantly on the move. He’d grown up moving, learning new languages with them and fitting in with each new community with ease. But there was a loneliness to it, and at eleven he was still too young to understand why his mothers had grown nervous with the three years settled in Copenhagen.

“What if he gets a Hogwarts letter?” Lily asked in despair, the fear weighing heavily on her mind.

Severine drew her close, holding her in a warm, loving embrace.

“I’m fairly confident that Aquitaine is well outside of the Hogwarts catchment area,” she murmured against Lily’s neck, kissing it gently, “Besides, we’re only here for a month. As long as we keep moving from country to country, we should avoid coming to the attention of the authorities,”

Lily knew that Severine was right. They’d had no contact with the British wizarding world since they walked away from Spinner’s End, two young women holding hands as they set off on a voyage of discovery. Lily had sent her parents a postcard, but given them no forwarding address. They’d avoided the wizarding communities of the various European countries, though they had made contacts and connections with the tangled web of travellers and drop-outs like them. Harry had been born in a muggle hospital outside of Brussels, in the first phase of their lives in Europe where they’d been moving almost constantly. They’d learnt the languages, taking part-time jobs as best they could. Once Harry had been born, they’d started staying longer, had taken up more regular jobs at times.

Lily made jewellery, pretty stones and shells twisted into earrings and necklaces. She painted and drew sketches, sometimes with Severine’s elegant calligraphy written on them. She would sell her wares at any market she could find. Severine sold potions to the varying travellers and drop-outs in their makeshift community, and she was popular. It was rare to find someone outside of the official wizarding world with the skill Severine had, so wherever she went there would often be ingredients offered and exchanges made. Severine had grown up foraging in Cokeworth, so she didn’t need an apothecary for many of the more basic ingredients anyway, and the messaging system that their little, wide-spread community used, where messages were left in hollow trees with a mild enchantment, came easily to her. She also wrote and sold poetry, which she would sometimes read aloud to Lily. More often than not, these readings would be done with a hint of embarrassment, but after her mild success with publishing Lily was forever grateful that she had encouraged Severine to send the first poem to that first magazine.

“I know,” Lily sighed, turning her head slightly to capture Severine’s lips in an affectionate kiss.

“Do you regret it?” Severine asked her quietly as they parted.

Lily looked deep into her dark eyes, “No,” she answered honestly, “No I don’t. Running away with you was the best decision I ever made. Do you?”

Severine shook her head, “I have never been more grateful of anything, than of how grateful I am that you decided to run away. It didn’t seem particularly Gryffindor to me, when you showed up on my doorstep asking me to run away from the war, but I am so thankful,”

Lily stroked her face thoughtfully, “If not for you,” she said slowly, “I don’t think I would have been brave enough,” she admitted.

Severine frowned at her in confusion, the shadows of the night playing across her face.

“I mean it,” Lily said, “If I’d been alone, if I hadn’t had to think of you, suffering in the war, I would probably have done nothing. Just, gone along with everything. Let other people make the decisions. It’s easy to let other people have control. But I couldn’t bear seeing that happen to you. I didn’t have the strength or the courage to think for myself, to see that I was trapped and to free myself, but I did have the strength, the courage, the need to free you. To save you from being used as a pawn in a war. That made me brave enough to act. Brave enough to plan. Brave enough to reach out to you. And brave enough to run,”

Severine stayed silent, but Lily could see unshed tears welling up in her eyes. Softly, she kissed her, a kiss as fleeting as a butterfly’s wings.

“And it was the best decision I’ve ever made, except maybe the decision to be your best friend,” Lily continued, making Severine laugh a little tearfully, “Can you imagine raising Harry against the backdrop of a war? I don’t think I’d have dared to run away knowing I was pregnant, but how could I have had a baby, raised a baby with the wizarding world tearing itself apart all around?”

They held each other in comparable silence, until Severine broke it, “When he’s older, we’ll have to start teaching him magic. He’ll have to go to a muggle school, at least for the final segment of his education. By that point, there’s no chance of any wizarding school sending us letters. This year we’ll have to keep moving to make sure of that. I’ll have to start asking about where to source a wand,”

Lily nodded her agreement, twisting to lie down tangled in Severine’s arms, “And tomorrow we will have French pastries fresh from the boulangerie down the road,” she murmured as Severine reached out to turn the bedside light off.


End file.
